My day

 I wait for this day every year.  It's MY day.  I don't wait for Christmas with this kind of anticipation.  I don't.  This is strawberry day.  This was the first day of first picking and PH and I were out at the field by 8:30 a.m. During strawberry season I am out there every other day picking just enough berries for THE pie.  Today we picked 9.75 pounds of berries in about 20 minutes.  This particular variety was huge, extremely sweet and juicy and three filled your palm.  I don't make jam.  PH doesn't eat it and it would take me a whole year to go through one jar of jam so I don't bother.  Sometimes I freeze a few for making strawberry ice cream, sometimes for morning yogurt but not usually.  Mostly, it's all pie.

 We were flattered this morning.  The girl who works the field station knows me from years past. As she said, "you're here every day" and told us that she keeps the recipe for this pie in her safe.  She said, "I have five things in my safe and your recipe is one of them."

 I made three of these pies with those 9.75 pounds.  Now, this pie, as you've heard me say many times, is the reason God made strawberries.  It can only be made with fresh picked Michigan berries.  Store berries are not even considered.  Not possible. Never. When a strawberry is cut the action should not make a sound and certainly not sound like you're cutting an apple.  A silent slice through ripe juiciness fresh off the plant, that's what it should sound like.  One pie went to PH's brother who is recuperating from a knee replacement and is still after three weeks in shock over the intensity of the thing.  One went to daughter and family down the street but I had to wait till daughter got home because by the time the adults got home Elizabeth would have had all the strawberries eaten out of it and presented the adults with an empty pie shell.  And the last one was for us.

This is our supper.  Every pie day this is our supper.  Just this. I wait all year for this day. It's enough.